


Flesh and Nerve

by SevenEyes



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-03 21:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17292035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenEyes/pseuds/SevenEyes
Summary: Two hundred years ago, the forces of order seized control of the Remnant star system. From the sprawling mega-cities of their frozen capital, Atlas rules the people of Remnant with an iron fist. Mistral, Vacuo, and Vale, once independent worlds with dreams of their own, are now mere vassals and puppets of the Schnee Dynasty.Oscar Pine is a lowly freighter captain with an old and decaying cargo hauler, struggling just to get by. He never asked to be a hero, but fate seems to have other plans.Now, in the free-spirited company of the notorious pirates of Beacon, Oscar realizes that most of the history he was taught is a lie. In the outer reaches of Remnant, beyond the blanket of propaganda from Atlas, something noble has survived.The rogue Huntress group RWBY, plus their loyal allies, still oppose the dominion of Atlas. These brave freedom fighters recruit Oscar for their shadow war, tirelessly working toward a Remnant system without Schnee oppression.If he’s really, really lucky, Oscar might even live long enough to see it.RWBY and all related concepts belong to Rooster Teeth. Please support the official release.





	1. Get to the Chopper

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! This is a random idea that wouldn't stop bugging me until I wrote something about it. I have no master plan for the direction of this story. Where is the plot heading? We can all find out together!
> 
> Note: Every ship has a crew of exactly one person, in the style of EVE Online. Thus, everyone who flies a ship (of any size) is the captain (and only crew member) of it. Also, the neural link means that spacers (Captains) frequently view themselves and their ship as interchangeable. 
> 
> Thus, there is no actual difference between saying 'my ship's hull is cracked,' 'my hull is cracked,' and 'my skin is cracked.' All human beings are wired into survival pods, and operate their ships with mental commands.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet our plucky protagonist.

From the moment I first spoke to Captain Arc (“no, please, call me Jaune”) I knew that something didn’t add up.

First of all, pretty much no one (well, no one remotely sane) books passage on a rusty old bulk freighter like the _Fortunate Son_. It may be a beloved family heirloom, but I’ll be the first to admit that my ship needs some work. A lot of work, actually. Half of my systems are jury-rigged to hell and back, and the other half don’t work at all. Those are... well, they're on my to-do list. In about the middle, actually. More on that later.

The second fishy thing was Captain Arc’s cargo, which consisted of only himself and his weird little ship. _Crocea Mors_ appeared to be a totally average deep-space vessel, with no major mechanical issues. There was absolutely no reason that Arc couldn’t have just flown straight to his destination under his own power. As my passenger in the cargo bay of the _Fortunate Son_ , his trip would be twice as long and three times as risky. It made no sense.

Third, the fucking _money_ was just too good. I’d deliberately quoted Captain Arc an outrageously high figure for his task, expecting him to bounce back with a more reasonable counter-offer. Then we’d haggle back and forth for a bit, eventually settling on a sane, rational price. Lien would change hands, and life would go on as usual.

Arc didn’t respond with a lower offer. He responded with a simple “okay.” To stack another layer of weirdness onto everything, he offered to pay me a hefty bonus (again, casually throwing around more Lien than an average spacer would make in a year) to decline all other cargo and reject all other passengers. With great trepidation, I accepted that condition, too. Like I said, the money was just too good. 

And finally, the single biggest thing that clued me in to Captain Arc’s unusual nature: he didn’t look crushed and defeated (in spirit, I mean) by the omnipresent weight of Atlas. That… was unusual in the extreme. This man had _hope_ in a sense that most spacers didn’t, and I desperately wanted to know why.

So I took his offer, loaded _Crocea Mors_ into my hanger, and departed from Argus Station that same day. 

 

***

 

Now, the _Fortunate Son_ may have shitty, cut-rate sensors, but I swear that this new contact just materialized out of nowhere. We were being followed, but the mystery ship wasn’t transmitting an ID code of any kind. Under all the laws of Atlas, running silent like that is a crime that carries significant jail time. 

So yeah, sensors gave me next to nothing on our stalker. In fact, the most informative part of the whole spooky deal was a plain visual feed of the ship itself: all sleek, lean angles, weapons mounts, and a hull black as the void with a few tasteful white highlights. 

Our pursuer was undeniably a warship. Everything about it spoke of speed, power, and grace well beyond anything civilian-owned. Sensors continued to give me nothing but static, so I figured it was time to ask my passenger for his opinion.

Arc’s response, after taking a look at the images I sent him, was peculiar. I probably shouldn't have been so surprised, though, considering the spooky nature of the whole mission. 

“Ah, of course they sent _her._ Don’t panic, Oscar, she’s a friend.”

I barely held back my instinctive “that’s _Captain_ Oscar Pine, thank you very much.” This wasn’t the time for petty squabbles.

“Well, Arc, your ‘friend’ is flying some top-of-the-line military hardware. Her ship scares the hell out of me. If she tries to kill us, I can't say I like our odds”

Arc responded with some meaningless platitude, but I wasn’t listening. I was much more focused on the fact that _three more_ mystery ships (doesn’t anyone use fucking IFF transponders?) had just appeared _ahead of us_.

Now, stealth tech does exist, but it’s some hilariously expensive military shit. In my whole space-faring life, I’d never seen a ship that could mask itself so perfectly. Now, in less than one minute, I’d seen _four_ such ships. This was very, very bad.

From _Crocea Mors,_ secure inside my cargo bay, Arc is still talking. I tune back in.

“…very important. They’re not here to fight us. Here, I’ll ping them for their IFF codes. Stay calm, Oscar.”

I should mention at this point that the _Fortunate Son_ has no weapons. 

None. Zero. Nada. 

No, before you ask, not even a crappy anti-asteroid gun. Other things I have precisely none of: shields, armor, and Aura. Any ‘fight’ involving me would be horribly one-sided. _Crocea Mors_ almost certainly does have guns, but Jaune can’t use any of them from inside my hull, where he is currently stuck.

On the comm net, Arc apparently transmits a data packet, and suddenly the IFF signals for the three ships ahead of us resolve clearly. Still nothing from the ship behind us, though.

Ahead, things are getting interesting. We’ve got an oddly-shaped escort carrier, the _Simple Soul._ No strike craft deployed, but that could change with zero warning. The next one’s some kind of weirdly over-gunned frigate, the _Valkyrie._ Someone appears to have enthusiastically painted the _Valkyrie_ bright pink, probably as an inside joke. The third vessel is a fairly ordinary dark green corvette called the _Stormflower._

I’ve never heard of any of these people. My nav/registry computer hasn’t, either. They’re complete unknowns. 

Ten seconds later, though, our silent pursuer finally deigns to identify herself, and my blood turns to ice. This ship I _do_ recognize, and the sight of it fills me with wild, screaming, pants-shitting terror.

Light cruiser hull with major modifications. ID signal perfectly matches the _Shroud_ … which means we’re being followed by the notorious Blake Belladonna, one of the most wanted pirate-slash-terrorists who has ever lived. Ever. Her body count is _massive,_ and she’s not even the worst of the RWBY bunch.

It’s a reasonable conclusion that the three ships ahead are her accomplices in crime. Not that it matters, because any one of the craft near us could destroy me (and, by extension, Jaune) effortlessly. Four is just a crazy level of overkill. 

This… is beyond bad. This is a goddamn catastrophe. 

Spacers sometimes whisper about Blake and the RWBY pirates, who are apparently great innovators in the field of creative torture methods. There are whispered stories about what they do to spacers that they take alive. The stories are all very, very graphic. 

In the face of imminent capture by some extremely evil people, I do the only thing that I reasonably can do: I start removing the reactor safeties from the _Fortunate Son_. With a few more commands, I’ll be able to overload detonate the fusion core. Me, Jaune, and everything around us will end up as nothing but melted, drifting debris. Better dead than a prisoner of RWBY.

Jaune, however, remains cool as a cucumber. My best guess is that his sanity has snapped in the face of the gruesome end that we’re facing. He’s saying something about not worrying about the whole situation, but I disregard this as pure nonsense. Finally, my hand (metaphorically, since I’m neurally linked with the ship) is poised over the self-destruct button. With a deep breath (again, figuratively), I press it.

Nothing happens.

I press the neural-linked button again.

Nothing continues to happen. Well, not quite _nothing,_ because Jaune is talking. Again. This guy never quits.

“I’m sorry, Oscar, but I can’t let you do that. These people are my friends, you see. They’re here to rescue both of us.”

My mind is completely blown. Impossibly, Jaune has gotten control of the _Fortunate Son’s_ reactor systems. That’s… how the fuck did he even _do_ that?! There are no hard connections at all between his ship and mine, and my cyber-security is... well, average. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that it ought to be literally impossible for anyone to hack into my command systems without a hard line. And yet the fact remains that I don't have computer control any longer, because Arc does instead. 

Before I can figure this little tidbit out, my external sensors chime out a very specific pattern. I can still read sensor input, at least. As I parse the data, I figure that I might as well clue Jaune in. Assuming he doesn't already know, that is.

“So, Arc, it looks like the _Simple Soul_ is launching strike craft. Are you going to tell me not to worry about that, too?”

The lunatic has the audacity to _chuckle_ over the comm. Damn him to hell.

“Oh, that’s just Penny. She doesn’t mean any harm by it. In fact, she’s launching drones to help protect us. All of us, Oscar. See, we’d like you to join our cause.”

Fuck.


	2. I’ve Got a Bridge to Sell You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to everyone who left Kudos and/or reviews! I really appreciate your support and feedback.
> 
> So, yeah. For better or worse, I’ve thrown together a new chapter. If you’ve ever seen that one meme/picture of a happy-looking dog flying a helicopter, with the caption that reads “I have no idea what I’m doing,” then you understand how I feel right now. There is no master plan for this story.

There really ought to be a word for what I’m going through right now. Not a short phrase, not a sentence, but one single, specific word that encompasses the idea that ‘holy shit, everything that I learned in school is a lie.’

It would be a super-duper useful word in my current situation, because I’d be using it a whole fucking lot. Now, I already knew Atlas had their slimy propaganda hooks deep into every aspect of Remnant society, because everyone with a pulse knows that. You just don’t _ever_ mention it in public unless you want to hear the midnight knock of the secret police. 

Atlas has their elite Specialist program, and one of the many tasks they, uh… _specialize_ in is making inconvenient people disappear without a trace. Especially if those people insist on asking awkward questions. Questions like ‘does Emperor Schnee actually deserve to rule all of humanity?’

All in all, it took me about ten days to catch up on the _true_ history of the Remnant system.

By contrast, it took me roughly ten _seconds_ to fall hopelessly, desperately in love with Penny Polendina. 

***

Penny had elected to make her digital avatar look like a ridiculously cute girl with shockingly vivid orange hair. Mine, of course, was a representation of me when I first inherited the _Fortunate Son,_ on my fourteenth birthday.

__In a purely cosmetic sense, this made Penny about three years older than I was. Of course, avatars can easily be customized to look like anything or anyone, since it’s all just coded packets of data. If you wanted to, you could make your digital form manifest as a six-foot-tall animated penis. I’d had the dubious honor of running into several of those weirdos in my cargo-hauling career._ _

__Right. So, then. There was no way of knowing how old the ‘real’ Penny was, and the same was true in reverse. Penny didn’t know my actual physical age, and I was totally fine with maintaining that air of mystery between us._ _

__She asked me on a date, sort of. It was the uniquely spacer-centric kind of date where my consciousness mingled with hers in virtual reality. Penny greeted me as I zoned in to her digital world, and gave me an enthusiastic hug. She was as bubbly and cheerful as ever._ _

__“Salutations, Oscar! We’re going to have so much fun!”_ _

__I groaned, because Penny has a very specific idea of what ‘fun’ means. In this context, while my physical body deals with a massive influx of new skill files, Penny wanted our digital selves to fight. Well, to spar, anyway. She’d helpfully supplied a quaint, cozy little dojo for our mock battle._ _

__She compared it to a mini-game to keep the brain occupied, and it sure as hell beat waiting in virtual limbo while staring at the slowly-advancing progress bar. Outside the ‘window’ of the virtual building, I could see rolling, grassy hills. The simulated day was sunny, cloudless, and beautiful._ _

__Yup, conditions were perfect for our first date. There was only one problem: Penny was way, way better than I was._ _

__Case in point: a low, sweeping kick from Penny had just knocked me squarely onto my ass. Again._ _

__So far, I hadn’t managed to land a single blow on her avatar. VR can be as real as you want it to be, so I felt genuine pain every time Penny and I traded hits._ _

Well, not ‘traded,’ because that would suggest that I ever hit her. I didn’t, though not for lack of trying. Damn, that girl is fast. And pretty. Very, very pretty. _No! Bad Oscar!_ I most definitely was _not_ fixated on Penny’s angelic face, or her gorgeous eyes, or the graceful way she moved. Nope. Nope. Her mega-epic levels of cuteness did absolutely nothing for me. Nothing. 

__While I’m busy lying to myself, the object of my schoolboy crush is helping me to my (digital) feet._ _

__“Oscar, that was simply sen-sational! You’re learning so fast! You almost hit me that time.”_ _

__From anyone else, that last ‘compliment’ would have come across as a sarcastic quip mocking my lack of fighting skill. From Penny, though, it was completely sincere. As far as I could tell, she was a genuinely good person without any malice or spite whatsoever. It was a little intimidating, honestly. Penny was literally the nicest, kindest, _sweetest_ person I’d ever met. Self-deception aside, I was smitten. _ _

Was it too early to ask Penny to marry me? That seems like a good idea. No, wait, that seems like literally _the best_ idea. I should totally do that. 

_____No, wait, Oscar, don’t do that! That would be incredibly creepy._ _ _ _ _

____Blech. My internal voice of reason is such a wet blanket._ _ _ _

____Suddenly, Penny stops moving mid-battle, and gets the far-away look that spacers get when processing information that only they can see. I wait patiently, and after a moment, Penny fills me in._ _ _ _

“Er, um, Oscar, Ruby and her team just called. They’ve spotted an Atlas patrol moving to intercept us. I’d… I mean, _we_ would really feel a lot more comfortable if you moved your flesh body somewhere a little safer than the _Fortunate Son._ ” 

______I had some very, very strong objections to this idea, and I told Penny as much in no uncertain terms. They were asking me to leave my void-faring body, my hull, behind. In old-world terms, this was basically telling some poor organic schmuck (me, in this case) that they wanted to extract my brain and leave the rest of my body to the wolves._ _ _ _ _ _

______For obvious reasons, I refused. My hull may be shitty and barely space-worthy, but I’m not leaving it behind that easily. No fucking way. Penny can see the stubborn refusal written all over my avatar’s farm-boy face. I wouldn’t budge. This is the hill that I die on._ _ _ _ _ _

______Obviously, it’s not nearly that easy to refuse her. Penny, that dirty cheater, had one more card left to play._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Please, Oscar? I’m worried about you.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Damn that scheming little minx! How did she know that sincere requests from pretty girls are my only weakness?!_ _ _ _ _ _

______“…Fine. I’ll do it. Um, can you…?”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Penny immediately gets my meaning._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Of course, Oscar! Docking with you now. Stand by for pod transfer. There may be some brief disorientation while I switch links.”_ _ _ _ _ _

For a moment, the entire virtual world shudders and distorts, as my human body (plus neural pod) makes the crossing from the _Fortunate Son_ to the _Simple Soul._

______Just like that, I’m inside Penny._ _ _ _ _ _

______Go ahead, get the dirty jokes out of your system. I’ll wait._ _ _ _ _ _

______***_ _ _ _ _ _

Now that my meat-body is secure inside Penny’s cargo bay, she’s able to share her vastly superior senses with me. In our digital dojo, a dozen holographic screens pop into my field of view, showing the external feed from the _Simple Soul’s_ sensors. Filling the foreground, of course, is the derelict _Fortunate Son._ Without a command pod inside it, my venerable ship is just a chunk of drifting, inert metal. From the outside, I can clearly see all of the badly-patched hull sections that I was planning to properly repair later.

I suppose I’ll never get the chance, now.

Even a relative space-combat novice knows that you don’t bring a freighter to a ship battle. The _Fortunate Son_ has (or had, past tense) no weapons, no armor, no Aura, and pathetically weak engines. In a shooting match, I’d have been worse than useless. In fact, Penny would need to put herself in very significant danger just to protect my old hull. The thought of that filled me with shame, guilt, and dread. 

______This is it, then. I suppose I should say my goodbyes, because my old life is over. There’s no going back to the way things were. Besides, I trust Penny._ _ _ _ _ _

______Now, objectively speaking, I really _shouldn’t_ trust Penny. We’ve known each other for less than two weeks, and she’s technically a terrorist, a pirate, and a criminal. The bounty for bringing in Penny would yield enough lien to comfortably retire. Giving Atlas someone higher, like Ruby, would make me rich enough to buy a small moon. _ _ _ _ _ _

______But I can’t, because I’ve come to realize that this is the first time in my life that I really _care_ about a cause. Outnumbered, outgunned, and hunted by nearly everyone in known space, I’m still utterly certain that I’m fighting alongside the good guys. Maybe that makes me naive, but I don’t care. I, Oscar Pine, have found the thing that gives my life meaning. _ _ _ _ _ _

______The fact that I met a wonderful, charming, gorgeous girl in the process doesn’t hurt, either. I should get Penny some flowers, or something. Or chocolates. Virtual ones, that is._ _ _ _ _ _


	3. The Power of Love

In hindsight, asking Ruby Rose to help design my new combat hull may have been a mistake.

“…and lasers, and railguns, and missiles… wait, no! Even better! Missiles that explode into smaller missiles! And for the engines, we can totally give Oscar a set of new…”

In the week since I bid a fond farewell to the _Fortunate Son,_ Team RWBY had insisted that my survival pod (and thus my physical body) remain on Patch, a sleepy little asteroid base in the middle of nowhere. Apart from serving as a staging point for the Beacon crew, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about this dull, lifeless ball of rock. If Patch were a town, it would be the kind with one dusty, unpaved street, a post office, a saloon, and very little else. 

“…and ablative hull armor, and vectored thrusters, and, ooh! When Oscar figures out his semblance, we can add this thing that I’ve been designing…”

Now, say what you like about Ruby Rose and her… eccentric love of combat engineering, but the girl is literally a genius. I could only assume that she’d modified her physical body to run continuously without sleep, because she hadn’t taken a single break in her whirlwind extravaganza of design. For the first hour or so, Ruby had made a token (but ultimately futile) attempt to take my design suggestions, which was a nice thought.

“…so now there’s like a ninety-nine percent chance that it won’t explode! Well, okay, maybe ninety-five percent. Approximately. The point is, it’s totally safe for field trials!”

Now, of course, Ruby had just cut out the middleman and seized control of the entire project. I had long since accepted my fate, and possibly my own messy death via sudden explosion. With Ruby in full weapon-geek mode, resisting her was futile. Well, on the brighter side of things, at least my new space-faring body would probably have some sweet guns.

***

Of course, I spent the vast majority of my downtime with Penny in a series of virtual worlds. She’d very briefly shown me a VR construct of Atlas, the planet where she was born. The thing was, she’d paused on the word ‘born’ just a little too long to be normal. I sensed a story behind that particular slip, but I wasn’t going to pry.

Penny had perfected (or possibly invented) a unique combat style that used a swarm of weaponized drones. From a certain angle, the sharp, angular profile of each drone resembled a stylized sword, and their capabilities were formidable. 

Without any visible strain, Penny could make the drones shoot, maneuver, reposition, protect, or ram other ships, all while smoothly operating her own major systems. It was beautiful to watch, but terrifying to fight against. I didn’t win a single simulated match, even when Penny deliberately handicapped herself with battle damage.

In the present, while Ruby horribly abused conventional science to build my combat hull, Weiss paid me a virtual visit. As always, her avatar was regal, beautiful, and composed. All in all, she looked like a princess from the distant past. Even her simulated voice was precise, poised, and refined.

“Hello again, Oscar. We should discuss unlocking your Aura. Now, my teammates have some ideas they’d like to run by you, if you’re available.”

That last part was moderately funny, considering that I literally couldn’t move under my own power. Without a hull, I was a lot like an insect larva stuck in a beehive. I wasn’t going anywhere, and Weiss knew it. Honestly, I was very much available until Ruby finished her work. 

As if on cue, Blake and Yang zoned in to Penny’s pleasant farm world, bringing the total avatar count to five. By coincidence, Penny and I were sitting on a porch swing outside of a quaint little barn, and Weiss, Blake, and Yang faced us on the grass. 

Weiss had just started explaining how unlocking latent Aura worked, when I noticed that Yang was directing a sly sideways glance at Penny. Yang’s grin could best be described as ‘shit-eating.’ Clearly, Yang knew something that I didn’t. If past experience is any indication, the blonde brawler is probably waiting to unleash some thinly-veiled innuendo.

When Weiss got to the part about an existing Aura user touching the subject while saying some significant words, I felt Penny shift next to me. At roughly the same time, Yang spoke up, sounding insufferably smug.

“Oh, I think we can find someone to unlock Oscar’s Aura for him. Penny’s an expert at that, you know. We’ll just leave the two of you to…”

Whatever suggestive comment Yang was going to make was cut off by Blake’s well-timed elbow strategically hitting Yang’s side. Blake spoke with the air of the long-suffering girlfriend.

“What Yang means is that you two might want some privacy, so we’ll be stepping out now.”

With that, three-fourths of team RWBY zoned out, and the visiting avatars disappeared without a trace. This left Penny and I alone, which inexplicably made both of us blush.


End file.
